Basic Electronics Tutorial : Lean the basics of electronics including electronics circuits,

PCB (Printed Circuit Board), Electronics Design, Laws of Electronics. This article is designed
for the beginner to electronics. The more experienced hobbyist will probably learn some new
things as well, since there is a good deal of information here that most non-professionals
will be unaware of.
Introduction to Electronics: 1745 Cuneus and Muschenbrock, in Leyden
(Netherlands), discover the Leyden jar. The first electrical capacitor - a storage
mechanism for an electrical charge. The first ones were a glass jar filled with water -two
wires suspended in the water. Muschenbrock got such a shock out of the first jar he
experimented with that he nearly died. Later, the water was replaced with metal foils
wrapped so there was insulation between the layers of foil- the two wires are attached to
the ends of the sheets of foil. This gave birth to Modern Electronics.
Definition of electronics: Electronics is the branch of science that deals with the study of
flow and control of electrons (electricity) and the study of their behavior and effects in
vacuums, gases, and semiconductors, and with devices using such electrons. This control of
electrons is accomplished by devices that resist, carry, select, steer, switch, store,
manipulate, and exploit the electron.
Electronics deals with flow of charge (electron) through non-metal conductors (semiconductors).
Electrical deals with the flow of charge through metal conductors.
Example: Flow of charge through silicon which is not a metal would come under electronics
whereas flow of charge through copper which is a metal would come under electrical.
Electronics Definitions: Electronics is the branch of science that deals with the study of flow
and control of electrons (electricity) and the study of their behavior and effects in vacuums, gases,
and semiconductors, and with devices using such electrons.

Rules of Electrical Circuits: * A voltage of 1V across a resistance of 1 Ohm will cause a current
flow of 1 Amp, and the resistor will dissipate 1 Watt (all as heat).
What is an electronic circuit? A circuit is a structure that directs and controls electric currents,
presumably to perform some useful function. The very name "circuit" implies that the structure is
closed, something like a loop.
Current: Charge is mobile and can flow freely in certain materials, called conductors. Metals and a
few other elements and compounds are conductors. Materials that charge cannot flow through are
called insulators. Air, glass, most plastics, and rubber are insulators, for example. And then there are
some materials called semiconductors, that seemed to be good conductors sometimes but much less
so other times. Silicon and germanium are two such materials. The flow of charge is called electrical
current. Current is measured in amperes (a), amps for short (named after another French scientist
who worked mostly with magnetic effects).
Wiring Symbols: There are many different representations for basic wiring symbols, and these
are the most common. The conventions I use for wires crossing and joining are marked with a star
(*) - the others are a small sample of those in common use, but are fairly representative. Many can
be worked out from their position in the circuit diagram (schematic).
Voltage: Voltage is something is a type of "pressure" that drives electrical charges through a
circuit.
Bodies with opposite charges attract, they exert a force on each other pulling them together. The

magnitude of the force is proportional to the product of the charge on each mass.
What is charge? Charge may be defined as the quantity of unbalanced electricity in a body
(either positive or negative) and construed as an excess or deficiency of electrons. Charge comes in
two forms, positive (+) , and negative charge ( - ) .
Batteries: Charges can be separated by several means to produce a voltage. A battery uses a
chemical reaction to produce energy and separate opposite sign charges onto its two terminals. As the
charge is drawn off by an external circuit, doing work and finally returning to the opposite terminal,
more chemicals in the battery react to restore the charge difference and the voltage. The particular
type of chemical reaction used determines the voltage of the battery, but for most commercial
batteries the voltage is about 1.5 V per chemical section or cell.
Resistors: A Resistor is an electrical device that resists the flow of electrical current. It is a
passive device used to control, or impede the flow of, electric current in an electric circuit by providing
resistance, thereby developing a drop in voltage across the device. The value of a resistor is measured
in ohms and represented by the Greek letter capital omega. Resistors usually have a brown cylindrical
body with a wire lead on each end, and colored bands that indicate the value of the resistor.
Ohms Law: Ohm's law describes the relationship between voltage, V , which is trying to force
charge to flow, resistance, R , which is resisting that flow, and the actual resulting current I .
Power: Power is the Electric energy produced per unit time.
Capacitors: In simple words, we can say that a capacitor is a device used to store and release
electricity, usually as the result of a chemical action. Also referred to as a storage cell, a secondary
cell, a condenser or an accumulator. A Leyden Jar was an early example of a capacitor.
Inductors: An inductor is an electrical device (typically a conducting coil) that introduces
inductance into a circuit. An inductor is a passive electrical component designed to provide inductance
in a circuit. It is basically a coil of wire wrapped around an iron core. simplest form an inductor is
made up of a coil of wire. The inductance measured in henrys, is proportional to the number of turns
of wire, the wire loop diameter and the material or core the wire is wound around.
Semiconductor devices: A conductor made with semiconducting material. Semiconductors are
made up of a substance with electrical properties intermediate between a good conductor and a good
insulator. A semiconductor device conducts electricity poorly at room temperature, but has increasing
conductivity at higher temperatures. Metalloids are usually good semiconductors.
Silicon: Silicon, atomic number 14 on the periodic table, is a semiconducting material from which
integrated circuits (computer chips of all types--processors, memory chips, etc.; CCDs; transistors;
etc.) are created.
Silicon is one of the most common elements. Silicon is also the semiconductor material out of which
almost all modern transistors are made.
Diodes: A Diode is an electronic device that allows current to flow in one direction only. It is a
semiconductor that consists of a p-n junction. They are used most commonly to convert AC to DC,
because they pass the positive part of the wave, and block the negative part of the AC signal, or, if
they are reversed, they pass only the negative part and not the positive part.

Cuneus and Muschenbrock, in Leyden (Netherlands), discovered the Leyden jar in 1745.

Ben Franklin (1746-52 ) flew kites to demonstrate that lightning is a form of static
electricity (ESD
Charles Augustus Coulomb (1736-1806) invented the torsion balance in 1785.
In is 1800 Count Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) announced the results of his
experiments investigation Galvani's claims about the source of electricity in the frog leg
experiment.
In the year 1820 Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) in Denmark demonstrated a
relationship between electricity and magnetism by showing that an electrical wire carrying a
current will deflect a magnetic needle.
1822-27 Andr Marie Ampre (1775-1836) in France gave a formalized
understanding of the relationships between electricity and magnetism using algebra.
1826 George Simon Ohm (1787-1854) wanted to measure the motive force of
electrical currents
Michael Faraday (1791-1867). 1820s Faraday postulated that an electrical
current moving through a wire creates "fields of force" surrounding the
wire. 1821 Faraday built the first electric motor--a device for transforming an
electrical current into rotary motion. 1331 Faraday made the first transformer. The
unit of capacitance is named after him.
Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891).
Gauss is known as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. The CGS unit of
magnetic field density in named after Gauss. Weber, a German physicist, also
established a system of absolute electrical units. The MKS unit of flux is named
after Weber.
Joseph Henry (1799-1878) was a professor in a small school in Albany, New
York. In 1830 he observed electromagnetic induction, a year before Faraday. The
unit of induction is named after him.
1832 Heinrich F.E. Lenz (1804-1865), born in the old university city of Tartu,
Estonia (then in Russia), was a professor at the University of St. Petersburg who
carried out many experiments following the lead of Faraday.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791 - 1872) brought a practical system of
telegraphy to the fore front using electromagnets, and invented the code named
after him in 1844.
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887) was a German physicist. He announced
the laws which allow calculation of the currents, voltages, and resistance of electrical
networks in 1845 when he was only 21
James Clerk Maxwell (1831 - 1879) wrote a mathematical treatise formalizing
the theory of fields in 1856: On Faraday's Lines of Force. In the year 1873 Maxwell
published Electricity and Magnetism, demonstrating four partial differential equations

that completely described electrical phenomena

Hermann Lud-wig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821 - 1894) was an all around
universal scientist and researcher.
Sir William Crookes (1832 - 1919) investigated electrical discharges through
highly evacuated "Crookes tubes" in the year 1878.
Joseph Wilson Swan (1828 - 1914) Joseph Swan demonstrated his electric
lamp in Britain in February 1879.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931): In 1878, Edison began work on an electric
lamp and sought a material that could be electrically heated to incandescence in a
vacuum. 1882 Edison installed the first large central power station on Pearl Street in
New York City in 1882; its steam-driven generators of 900 horsepower provided
enough power for 7,200 lamps.
Oliver Heaviside (1850 - 1925) Worked with Maxwell's equations to reduce the
fatigue incurred in solving them.
Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857 - 1894) was the first person to demonstrate the
existence of radio waves
Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943) devised the polyphase alternating-current systems
that form the modern electrical power industry. The unit of magnetic field density
is named after him.
Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865 - 1923) discovered the mathematics of
hysteresis loss, thus enabling engineers of the time to reduce magnetic loss in
transformers.
Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - 1937) Known as the "father of wireless", was an
Italian national who expanded on the experiments that Hertz did, and believed that
telegraphic messages could be transmitted without wires.
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845 - 1923) discovered X rays, for which he
received the first Nobel Prize for physics in 1901.
Sir Joseph John Thomson (1856 - 1940) is universally recognized as the
British scientist who discovered and identified the electron in the year 1897.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955): In the year 1905, Einstein elaborated on the
experimental results of Max Planck who noticed that electromagnetic energy seemed
to be emitted from radiating objects in quantities that were discrete.
Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849 - 1945) made the first diode tube, the
Fleming valve in the year 1905.
Lee De Forest (1873 - 1961) added a grid electrode to Flemings' valve and
created the triode tube, later improved and called the Audion.
Jack St. Clair Kilby developed the integrated circuit while at Texas instruments.

Robert Norton Noyce (1927 - 1990) also developed the integrated circuit with
a more practical approach to scaling the size of the circuit. He became a founder of
Fairchild Semiconductor Company in 1957
Seymour Cray (1925 - 1996) Also known as "The Father of the Supercomputer",
along with George Amdahl, defined the supercomputer industry in the year 1976.